We Two Boys Together Clinging
We two boys together clinging,One the other never leaving,Up and down the roads going, North and South excursions making,Power enjoying, elbows stretching, fingers clutching,Arm’d and fearless, eating, drinking, sleeping, loving.No law less than ourselves owning, sailing, soldiering, thieving,threatening,Misers, menials, priests alarming, air breathing, water drinking, onthe turf or the sea-beach dancing,Cities wrenching, ease scorning, statutes mocking, feebleness chasing,Fulfilling our foray.
Words in this poem
- soldiering n.
- The act of serving as a soldier; the state of being a soldier; the occupation of a soldier.
- alarming a.
- Exciting, or calculated to excite, alarm; causing apprehension of danger; as, an alarming crisis or report.
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
We Two Boys Together Clinging is in the public domain. This text is taken from Leaves of Grass, Project Gutenberg ebook #1322; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: Walt Whitman, We Two Boys Together Clinging, in Leaves of Grass (1855–1892), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #1322, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/whitman-leaves/we-two-boys-together-clinging.html, id L03881.
Form and metre
We Two Boys Together Clinging is 11 lines in a single stanza. 85% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 11.2 syllables. 10 lines end on an unstressed syllable, a feminine ending. 9% of the lines run on without a stop at the line end.
Measured by Laurel's pipeline, not copied from a handbook: how stress and metre are counted, how rhyme is lettered, how a drifted rhyme is found. Where the dictionary cannot confirm a rhyme the letter is withheld, not guessed.
Rhyme words, stanza by stanza
The word that ends each line, lettered by the rhyme it makes; a dash is a line whose rhyme the dictionary could not confirm.
- 1 -A---A----- clinging · leavingA · making · clutching · loving · thievingA · threatening · on · dancing · chasing · foray
Scansion, line by line
Each line with its syllable count and the stresses the words themselves fix: / stressed, ˘ unstressed, · a syllable the word leaves free and the metre decides. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| We two boys together clinging, | 8 | ···˘/˘/˘ |
| One the other never leaving, | 8 | ··/˘/˘/˘ |
| Up and down the roads going, North and South excursions making, | 15 | ·····/˘···˘/˘/˘ |
| Power enjoying, elbows stretching, fingers clutching, | 13 | /˘˘/˘/·/˘/˘/˘ |
| Arm’d and fearless, eating, drinking, sleeping, loving. | 12 | ··/˘/˘/˘/˘/˘ |
| No law less than ourselves owning, sailing, soldiering, thieving, | 16 | ····˘˘//˘/˘/˘˘/˘ |
| threatening, | 3 | /˘˘ |
| Misers, menials, priests alarming, air breathing, water drinking, on | 17 | /˘/˘˘·˘/˘·/˘/˘/˘· |
| the turf or the sea-beach dancing, | 8 | ······/˘ |
| Cities wrenching, ease scorning, statutes mocking, feebleness chasing, | 16 | /˘/˘·/˘/˘/˘/˘˘/˘ |
| Fulfilling our foray. | 7 | ˘/˘/˘/˘ |
The reader shows the same poem with its rhymes coloured and a stress row above each line, the notes beside their stanzas, and any word's definition on a tap; the analysis page takes the whole book apart. How every part of this site was made.